September 1, 2015

EP: Fleabite - T.T.Y.L.

Fleabite's T.T.Y.L. is for all of the homebodies out there.

There’s something that only a few people know about me. My boyfriend knows, my parents know, my
dog’s probably noticed, and everyone that’s ever been into my bedroom has probably noticed too. It’s a routine I’ve been stuck on for a good while; a habit I can’t break. It’s
something I’m hooked on: it’s that I have not stopped listening to The Le Sigh Vol. II since it came
out. I can'y stop, and I probably never will. The tape is constantly filling every silence in
the back of my brain – it literally has not been taken out of my cassette player since I first got it in
the mail, asides from when I have to flip it over. The compilation summarizes every sound for every feeling I’ve ever felt, and every track resonates in ways I can’t
explain. I could give a track-by-track rundown of this compilation and talk for days. But it’s cool,
don’t worry, I’m not here to talk your ear off.

Today, I just want to talk to you about one thing, one
band, one 7” – Fleabite’s T.T.Y.L.
Fleabite's latest release features the song I know best from The Le Sigh
Vol. II, "Missing Everyone" – the one song I kept getting stuck on, as I rewound it to play it for the millionth time. "Missing Everyone" speaks to me both in sound and subject, so, two
steps in to this release, I already felt right at home.
T.T.Y.L is a record that will resonate with any homebodies out there. It’s shaded with that familiar lo-
fi feeling, with an underside layered with fuzzy guitars that slow down and pick up as this record
goes from start to finish. This is all topped off with the melodramatic tone, singing for the
feeling that encapsulates this release: the constant worry of letting moments pass you by. Say you’re
me – you’re stuck in your room, rewinding your favorite cassette tape and letting it play through,
over and over. You’re too nervous to go out tonight, so instead of exploring the unfamiliar, you stick
by those speakers and stay in (but end up regretting it later). Well, Fleabite has written T.T.Y.L for
this very feeling – for you, and me, and all the other homebodies out there: “But if I stay at home
tonight / then I am swimming in regret / I think of all the things I missed / and all the things I never
said”. Fleabite has made a record that has pulled me out of my rut – out of my bedroom, out of
the familiar sound of my favorite cassette tape filling the silence in the back of my brain. I’ll get up,
I’ll go out, and I’ll be playing this record the entire way to wherever I’m going, to keep blaring out
those nerves that keep coming up in my stomach. Fleabite’s T.T.Y.L is up for sale via Puzzle Pieces
Records – and I think you’re gonna need it, if you need someone to talk you through these sorts of
frantic feelings. I know I do.

THIS STAFF POST WAS CONTRIBUTED BY:
Madalyn Trewin, a scrawny Australian teenager, who is feeding her obsession with dogs, David Lynch and Daniel Johnston twenty-four hours a day. If not that, she's writing about things she likes and saturating her friends in glitter so she can take photos of them to post onto her blog.